Ok, not really – that would be pretty spooky, wouldn’t it? Like that goldfish in the bowl that was tormenting the kid in that South Park episode.

Anyway, as the weather in the Mid-Atlantic turns towards the cooler side, my vinous thoughts start to move away from Soaves of the world and towards the luscious, viscous, warming spectrum of dessert-style wines. And so I thought that a quick review of the wine that accompanied my long journey back to the States – and a recap of its production from my tour at Volpaia – might serve as an interesting introduction into how the (usually) sweet Tuscan wine Vin Santo is made.

Paso Robles, courtesy of the Paso Robles Wine Country Alliance, presumably because you folks don’t get enough images of beautiful vineyard locations coupled with smarmy captions here on 1WineDude.com, so we need a trip to get you some more, you greedy little things!

I’ll be taking part in what they call a “Lifestyle Media Tour,” the aim of which is to get an “understanding of Paso Robles’ approach to sustainability, experiencing a true sense of place, seeing what the consumer may experience on a visit and meeting the personalities of the region.” It’s unclear if those personalities include Bugs Bunny, but for some reason I woke up this morning wishing they did (maybe it was the Absinthe…). Oh, and I’ll be visiting (hopefully) more than a few producers of Paso wine, since the region is CA’s third-largest and by many counts its fastest-growing wine area.

Anyway, I’ll be “roughing it” once again in the hopes that the trip will net some interesting stuff to share with all of you (it would suck to take those 6AM flights out to the Left Coast for nuthin’!).

When you’re dealing with the wine biz on a consistent basis, there’s one thing you get to see a whole lot of (besides wine, Styrofoam, and cardboard, I mean):

Stainless steel tanks.

Everybody who produces wine wants to show you their steel tanks. Wine people are obsessed with their steel tanks; they basically have total hard-ons for their steel tanks. There might actually be a support group for wine industry folk who have steel tank fetishes… I’m not sure, but I’m also not in any hurry to research that one. Anyway, they don’t just want to show you their steel tanks, they want to talk at length about their steel tanks – their capacity, how many they have, how big they are, and how they use them in special, careful, meticulous ways for separate vinifications of Wine X versus Wine Y. They want you to really understand their steel tanks. They want you to love their steel tanks.

The trouble with all this steel tank love is that there are only really two kinds of people that actually give a rat’s ass at all about steel tanks:

I’ve yet to meet anyone (anyone!) else in the Universe that cares about steel tanks – including me, and (very, very likely) including you who are reading me talking about the wine biz’s hard-on for steel tanks.

So when you find yourself in a situation where steel tanks are actually, truly, 100%-certified cool – like when they’re hidden in the bowels of churches from the Middle Ages in Chianti’s Volpaia, for example – well, let’s just say you get real interested, real fast. Which is exactly what happened to me a couple of weeks ago as I whiled away my time under the Tuscan sun in the heart of Italy’s ancient, beautiful and storied Chianti Classico region…

How did my Tuscan Vin Santo fare in the VinniBagafter being left out in the car in Chianti and Volterra, getting dragged in my luggage through the bumpy streets of Siena, and then subjected to multiple British Airways flights and the formidable Terminal 5 in London Heathrow airport? Watch the vid to find out!

Apologies in advance for the low volume during the first part of the vid (screw it, I was on vacation!) and for the jumpiness in the second stanza (the 100+ lb dog was trying to play a bit too friskily with the camerawoman at the time…).

Ron Saikowski { My WINE WALK Article on the same subject had several predictions which I believe will happen. First, mechanical grape harvesting will be way harvesting will... } – Dec 07, 11:21 AM

1WineDude { I've received some social media comments that under Trump, US citizens will have more expendable income with which they could buy more wine. This is... } – Dec 07, 7:32 AM

1WineDude { Michael, I think that's a bit of an overkill of a comparison, though a humorous one :). } – Dec 06, 2:45 PM

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